e life and works of the monks in their entirety stand justly
condemned.

41. Finally, even if all other arguments should fail, this argument,
according to which man judges the cause by the effect, remains;
namely, that God expresses approval of Noah's deed. Although such
reasoning from effect to cause may not be unassailable, it yet is not
without value in respect to such heroic and uncommon men, who meet not
with rejection but approval on the part of God, although they appear
to do what they have not been expressly commanded. They possess the
inward conviction that they are guilty of no transgression, though the
disclosure of this fact is delayed until later God expresses his
approval. Such examples are numerous and it is noteworthy that God has
expressed approval even of the acts of some heathen.

42. Let this maxim, then, stand, that everything must be done by the
command of God in order to obtain the assurance of conscience that we
have acted in obedience to God. Hence they who abide in their divinely
assigned calling, will not run uncertainly nor will they beat the air
as those who have no course in which they have been commanded to run,
and in consequence may not look forward to a prize. 1 Cor 9, 24.

But I return to the text. Noah, with his sons and the women, is
commanded to leave the ark, and to lead forth upon the earth every
species of animals, that all his works may be sanctified and found in
keeping with the Word. Concerning the animals Moses now expressly
states:

Vs. 17-19. _Be fruitful, and multiply upon the earth. And Noah went
forth, and his sons, and his wife, and his sons' wives with him: every
beast, every creeping thing, and every bird, whatsoever moveth upon
the earth, after their families, went forth out of the ark._

43. The Lord speaks of the propagation of Noah and his sons in the
ninth chapter and that, I believe, is the reason why he speaks here
only of the propagation of the animals. From the expression here used,
Lyra foolishly concludes that cohabitation had been forbidden during
the flood and was now again permitted after the departure from the
ark, since God says, "Go forth, ... thou and thy wife." Such thoughts
belong to monks not to God, who plans not sinful lust, but
propagation; the latter is God's ordination, but lust is Satan's
poison infused into nature through sin.

44. Moses here uses many words to illustrate the overflowing joy of
the captives' souls, when they were com